Pack/Team tactics

[Baron Hazard]

I have a Samoan Gang that also happens to be a pack of Hexensharks, I want them to be a decent threat and I think in order to do that I need some ideas/suggestions for manuevers and stuff that can be used as pack/team tactics.

On the streets they are decent marksmen, but their main goal will be to stay near the waves/ocean and try to knock opponents into the waves where they have the real advantage.

Any suggestions for ideas like that, I'm thinking on like Presence or Deceit maneuver to place the LURED OUT aspect on an enemy but thats all I'm thinking of right now.

[Centarion]

Have you thought about the mechanics of knocking people into the ocean? Would you model this as a maneuver+invoke for effect? As a grapple with forced movement?

Once you hammer that down you could totally have one member Lure Out opponents and another/the same one push them into the jaws of the rest of the pack.

[Taran]

Slippery Docs/rocks Aspect that you compel for people to fall in to the water during a fight.

Terrain that slopes towards the water would be helpful too. 

So their tactic would be to get their victims between them and the water, then use maneuvers like "cut off from dry land" and "tripped".

Maybe a tripped opponent would start sliding toward the water if they failed an athletics check or just plain be compelled to slide into water.

Have you thought about trying the "siren" tactic?  Have an attractive woman/man use rapport and sex appeal to get unsuspecting people to skinny dip with them?

Or pretend to be drowning so the PC's go into the water to save them, then get ambushed?  Maybe a bunch are out in a small boat with an out-board motor.  They pretend they're fisherman with a dead motor.  Their boat is drifting toward some rocks.  They need help.

Also, maybe this doesn't fit them, but if one was a Water based focused practitionner, he could call up waves to wash people into the drink.

Lastly, Hexensharks would make for good pirates.

Not sure any of that is what you're looking for, though.

[Sanctaphrax]

Forced movement is a bit of a tricky topic.

By RAW, you can use grapples or Aspect Invocations/Compels.

Other possibilities are discussed here.

[Baron Hazard]

Taran your suggestions if they don't help in this exact case (and they are some great ideas!) will I'm sure help me at the very least least think in appropriate ways, but alot of that looks like cool stuff to use.

The forced movement is not something im too worried about. My group is really solid with the narrative taking precedent. I'm looking for mechanical crunchy bits to help a team work together to over take a more dangerous foe short of just rolling him/them full of "Unbalanced" "distracted" etc etc.

Any ideas for like aspects placed on their fellows or something. Not necessarily specific to my Hexensharks, stuff that could work for a wolfpack or trained group of Special Forces even. Tactical type stuff. I think there should be a way to do that believably for cool effect, but I'm blanking on it.

Thanks everyone so far, Ive liked what i've been reading.

[Taran]

I was thinking about the "slippery slope" Aspect and thought of a neat way to implement it, if this was something you wanted to do.

Make a couple of long zones that are parallel to the water.  There is no zone border if they want to move toward the water but have a zone border at "X" difficulty if they want to move away from the water.  So say a Samoan member closes in on the PC wizard, if the wizard wants to move a zone away from him, it will be automatic to move toward the water, but an athletics +2 or higher to move away from the water.  The PC's might maneuver themselves towards the water this way.

[Taran]

Any ideas for like aspects placed on their fellows or something. Not necessarily specific to my Hexensharks, stuff that could work for a wolfpack or trained group of Special Forces even. Tactical type stuff. I think there should be a way to do that believably for cool effect, but I'm blanking on it.

Flank(athletics), double/triple/quadrouple-team(athletics to position or scholarship to represent knowledge of tactics), well co-ordinated(rapport),  Alpha Male (basically well-co-ordinated, but with Intimidate).

A few guys and a net could do neat stuff

[Baron Hazard]

Thanks! Yah little ideas like that are awesome, at least it helps push my thinking outside the box for stuff like that. Thats a cool idea.

Though I feel it'd need to be implemented properly in order to not feel like they were having things to stacked against them. But I think its an awesome idea.

Also those most recent maneuvers are helpful thank you, just the idea of representing that was giving me some pause in figuring out. I like the Flank and well-coordinate (scholarship is a good call there. Thanks!) Alpha Male also a cool idea. Need to play with the double/triple/quadruple teamed to see how I feel that works out well. Thanks

[Haru]

You could model the "being dragged/pushed into the water" thing as the taken out result of a previous conflict. Most things will be (pardon the pun) dead in the water, if they are faced with a pack of hexensharks, so the result of the actual physical conflict is pretty much determined by the hexensharks anyway. If the opponent in question is still considerable in the water, then you can work out the actual conflict, of course.

As others suggested, this will probably have to be a social conflict, using the siren tactic or whatever. You could also have part of the pack on land in human form to tackle them into the water.

Though I would center on more maritime adventures generally. Otherwise it kind of becomes a "Knight Boat" phenomenon. If a foe can escape on land, they have the advantage over your guys. So their incentive should be to catch them before that. Give the opposing force an island base, maybe even an underwater thing. Or an oil rig platform. Or simply a ship. That way, they have their territory to protect or reign over, and whatever happens on land is someone else's business, or they have to get help from land-based forces.

[admiralducksauce]

Spearguns with lines, so they can shoot and yank targets into the water.

The "Favored Environment" aspect or some variation on it, like "Familiar 'Ground'". Maybe "Deep Blue Sea" - the hexensharks can simply dive below the surface to break eye contact and tag the aspect to get the drop on their foes from a different angle, like a mini-ambush within the larger combat.

Use suppressing fire/Blocks to keep people pinned down close to the water if they try to run for it.

[Baron Hazard]

Just thought about a navel gazing maneuver, Presence based, maybe deceit or even rapport depending on how you go along with it. placing IM A DISTRACTION On himself allowing his allies to tag it for an +2 to attack or stealth or other maneuver.

However this also may work as a Block action also using rapport, deceit or presence. I think in many ways that way works also. The only problem is i see it working well on being like against an alertness roll, but becomes harder when you factor in using it to assist verse attacks, though I guess if you target one person with it you can block defenses as well so much as makes sense narratively. "Hey ugly!" type of thing.

and doing it as a block means that our friendly neighborhood enemies cant make use of the maneuver to have you Distract your own teammates.